A report into Housing Benefit has been released, which highlights errors in the system which have come with a huge price tag.

The PAC report found around £1.4 billion of overpayments were made to people claiming housing benefit.

Of that, £340 million was due to claimant fraud, while £150 million has been accounted for by official error.

Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, Margret Hodge MP released this statement on the reports findings:

“We are also concerned that the Department is not doing anything to target underpayments, despite the hardship caused to those who miss out on the support they are entitled to.

“It is completely nonsensical that the Department spends just 8% of its fraud and error funding on Housing Benefit, even though Housing Benefit overpayments account for 42% of overpayments across all benefits. The Department has also reduced its funding to local authorities, which as a result have cut back on wider work to identify undetected fraud, claimant error and underpayment.”

Andy Silvester, the Campaign Director for Campaigns Alliance joined Wake Up London to explain how such huge overspending can happen and what its impact will be.